Mortar and cement constitute some of the world's most important building materials. Cement, for example, can be mixed with water and materials such as sand, crushed stone, gravel and so forth to make concrete. The cement and water form a paste or mortar that binds the other materials together as the concrete hardens. Concrete has excellent qualities which make possible the rapid and efficient construction of dams, roads, large buildings and all types of large structures.
Most of the cement used today is portland cement which is a hydraulic cement that hardens under water. This cement is called portland because of a general appearance relationship to the natural product mined on the isle of Portland in Great Britain.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,645,916 there is disclosed a metallic mortar. This mortar is especially suitable in the making of constructions associated with nuclear power plants and the like. This patent discloses that concrete attenuates both neutrons and gamma rays reasonably well even though the effectiveness thereof varies somewhat with the composition. This patent, moreover, points out that a large number of concrete formulations using various types of aggregates dispersed therethrough have been employed as radiation shielding materials. It is an object of U.S. Pat. No. 3,645,916 to provide an improved metallic mortar which when admixed with water and allowed to set will produce a high density concrete having desirable characteristics and which is free of the disadvantages of the prior art material. To this end U.S. Pat. No. 3,645,916 discloses a metallic mortar which contains an iron ore concentrate characterized by high bulk density and various other characteristics such as, for example, appearance, crystalline corners and flat cleavage planes which in turn results in a radiation shielding structure of low cost, high density, ease of fabrication, good structural properties and so forth.